Greg Cosell’s Playoff Preview: Breaking down AFC wild-card games
With the playoffs upon us, I’m going to preview the games of wild-card weekend. In this post we’ll delve into the AFC games played on Saturday; tomorrow we’ll look at Sunday’s NFC games.
My goal for each of these preview posts is to give you a strategic wrinkle or two or a matchup to look for in each game, whether it’s how the Texans force an offense into single-blocking their pass rushers or a Steelers third-down tendency that could be a factor in Saturday night’s game.
Here are some things to keep an eye on as you watch the AFC wild-card games:
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS AT HOUSTON TEXANS
The Texans defense has been very good, and coordinator Romeo Crennel has done a good job making sure his pass rushers like J.J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus can’t be double teamed.
The way the Texans do it is with a five- or six-across front in nickel or dime packages. They’ll usually use “quarters” zone coverage behind that. It has been a staple for the defense and it creates one-on-one matchups along the line, even against Watt.
People always say, “You have to double-team Watt!” but the Texans don’t let you do that. Crennel does a very good job with his calls so everyone has to be accounted for. Here’s a good example, from the Jacksonville Jaguars’ first possession last week. The Texans lined up in a six-across front with linebacker Brian Cushing and safety Eddie Pleasant in the “A” gaps on either side of the center. Both Cushing and Pleasant dropped out at the snap but the desired objective was achieved with one-on-one matchups on the edge for Mercilus and Watt. Watt beat right tackle Sam Young for the sack.
Here’s why double teams are tough to execute against this front. When the Texans line up six across, the running back has to account for the players in the “A” gaps. Even when Pleasant and Cushing drop off again on this third quarter play, the back has already stepped up to fulfill his protection assignment. That creates a one-on-one matchup with Mercilus and left tackle Luke Joeckel (who continues to be a liability at left tackle for Jacksonville) and Mercilus gets a big third-down sack, and strips Bortles of the ball as well.
The Texans had eight sacks against the Jaguars, and seven came off of one-on-one matchups. When you see the Texans line up five or six across against the Chiefs, watch how much pressure it will put on Kansas City’s offensive line.
Of course the Chiefs have a weapon to slow down the rush, and it’s their play action game. The Chiefs ran power play action very well last week against the Raiders. They did it effectively out of the shotgun, too. Here’s a play in which the power play action impacted the Oakland Raiders’ stacked linebackers and opened a passing lane to Jeremy Maclin for the touchdown. This is a great design.
PITTSBURGH STEELERS AT CINCINNATI BENGALS
Since Bengals quarterback AJ McCarron is the focal point of the second AFC game, let’s take a look at how he played last week.
I didn’t see a sharp performance against the Baltimore Ravens. He did not see things clearly and missed some throws, especially early on. In the first quarter, out of an empty backfield, the Bengals had a play they game-planned — Rex Burkhead on a slot fade route against linebacker C.J. Mosley. The Bengals got the look they anticipated, man free coverage, and Burkhead was open. McCarron just badly underthrew him and it was incomplete.
McCarron played too fast in the first half last week and didn’t see a clear picture many times. He has been serviceable in place of Andy Dalton. He hasn’t thrown any interceptions in his three starts and has made some nice throws. But I don’t buy that he’s close to the same level as Dalton.
McCarron has the ability to make big-time throws, however. He did so on a 22-yard touchdown to Tyler Eifert. Out of “11” personnel (one back, one tight end) the route concept was four verticals on the trips side to McCarron’s left, to put the “quarters” zone safety Kendrick Lewis in conflict. Lewis stayed on the hash closer to Mohamed Sanu, which opened up Eifert. McCarron made the right read and made a precise ball-placement throw. He’ll need to make throws like this for the Bengals to win.
The Steelers’ offense has an interesting tendency that’s worth watching against Cincinnati. When it’s third-and-3 or less, the Steelers like to take shots deep in the passing game.
On 58 such plays this season (when Ben Roethlisberger has been at quarterback), the Steelers have thrown 30 times and 12 of them were deep downfield. In third-and-short you are almost guaranteed to get man coverage. The Steelers understand this and want to take advantage of it. In the last meeting between the teams, the Steelers were really good on third down, converting 8-of-14. Of those eight conversions, seven were on pass plays, and five of those were against man coverage.
Here’s a good example. On third-and-1, the Steelers passed deep to Markus Wheaton for 31 yards. Cincinnati defensive coordinator Paul Guenther is aware of this tendency. It’s something to watch for as the game unfolds.
Playoff previews: KC-HOU (1:00), PIT-CIN (11:00), SEA-MIN (24:00), GB-WAS (35:00)
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NFL analyst and NFL Films senior producer Greg Cosell watches as much NFL game film as anyone. Throughout the season, Cosell will join Shutdown Corner to share his observations on the teams, schemes and personnel from around the league.
